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makes sense... especially since that is something the Romulans would be prone to do.

For that to happen, the romulans need to trick the klingons into bringing their whole fleet out and then jumping passed them, burning the home world and then turning on the klingon fleet. Leaving them without replacement troops. The romulans have far better ships but not enough of them. They need to starve out the klingon war machine.

The klingons have the advantage of numbers. This is always usefull in a war. However, its clear they have all the tactical ability and subtlety of a brick.
If the romulans play their cards right, and if they get the first move, then I believe they could win in a war, but they would suffer heavy losses.

agreed, but they would have to fight fast and hard, if they let the klingons regroup then they would lose outright.

Knowing the Romulans they would probably plant a dress with white stains on it in Martoks chambers and cause a political scandal then attack.

An all out war might not be in the romulans best interests though. They could do far more damage by sabotage and infiltration, and then launch the attack. If they're carefull, the could have half the klingon military in disaray during the first strike.

I agree. And even if they would win a blitzkrieg-type war at the cost of heavy losses, I'm not sure those heavy losses would sit too well with the Senate or the poulus on Romulus.

An excelent point, would they have the support to prosecute such a war?

A strong point. Again suprise and intel would be the greatest tactics. But, they would have to win the first fleet battle because if they lose then the klingons will have the time needed to strike back.

Given the mutal antipathy between the Romulans and Klingons, I doubt that mustering support for an offensive would be too difficult - their main problem would be ensuring that the Federation did not get involved on the Klingons' side.

In terms of the actual war, the Romulans seem to concentrate on building big ships, like the D'Deridex or the Scimitar. Even the Valdore type, the smallest warship in their fleet, is bigger than any Klingon vessel except the Negh'var.

The Klngons, on the other hand, while they do have big ships, such as the B'rel, Vor'cha and Negh'var, seem to have built their fleet around large numbers of small Birds of Prey, operating as raiders either individually (as Kruge and Klaa did), or in squadrons, such as the one Martok led in "Once More Unto the Breach".

Given these disparate construction philosophies, it's likely that in combat the Romulans would favour fleet action to destroy the enemy force ASAP, while the Klingons would favour widespread skirmishing, whittling down the Romulan forces until a clear margin of superiority had been built up. This would also tie in with the Klingon mentality, as an individual ship's captain, with a select band of warriors, would have a greater chance of gaining glory in high risk single-ship raiding actions than as one cog in the huge machine of a fleet action - "if we are marked to die, we are enough to do our country loss, and if to live, the fewer men the greater share of honour".

Excelent points, Seafort.
Dosen't part of the Prime Directive state that the Federation can't get involved in the afairs of other races?

Yes but the feds would have to pick a side sooner or later.

all i remember about the prime directive, is some blarney about not interferring in the internal affairs of a sovereign government, as if the federation would even consider doing that?! paaff! lol
I always wondered why the klingons didn't go in and anex the romulan star empire, in the manner of the klingon invasion of cardassia, but perhaps the klingons, 'need' the external threat of the romulans to reduce internal dissent and refocus their aggression and martial values, like maintaining a 'boogie man'...

Rochey wrote:Dosen't part of the Prime Directive state that the Federation can't get involved in the afairs of other races?

I believe that "Redemption" stated that they aren't allowed to get involved with the internal affairs of other powers, but they're allowed to get involved if there are third parties involved. Hence direct support for Gowron in the Civil War was verboten, but Picard's blockade along the Klingon/Romulan boarder to interdict Romulan support for the Duras was not.

Lets also remember that the klingons don't know the true strength of the romulans and so maybe just not to liking of the idea of jumping into a war that they know nothing about.